Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times on 20 October 2014 while running down a street in the city.
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“The Chicago Police Department refuses to look at potential patterns of misconduct complaints when investigating police misconduct”, Futterman said.
Experts have said that Van Dyke could be also charged with violating McDonald’s civil rights.
While Van Dyke’s lawyer said the black teen had “stabbed at the windshield of a squad car” and “popped the tire” of another police vehicle, the video doesn’t show him close to stabbing any person.
While prosecutors in Cook County chose to charge Van Dyke with first-degree murder, IL law allows such defendants to be convicted of the lesser charge of second-degree murder. No sound is heard before Van Dyke opens fire and continues firing after McDonald falls to the ground. He also wants a special prosecutor on the case, saying Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez took too long to bring a murder charge in the 2014 shooting.
An autopsy report showed that McDonald was shot at least twice in his back and PCP, a hallucinogenic drug, was found in his system.
In a Wednesday morning interview on CBSN, Herbert indicated that in court the defense will call experts who will testify that Van Dyke was justified in continuing to shoot McDonald as he lay on the ground.
Chicago officials had feared for months that the release of the video could prompt protests that caused unrest in Baltimore and Ferguson after unarmed black men shot by police or died in police custody.
In a Thanksgiving message on Facebook, the president paid tribute to Chicago protesters for keeping the peace.
Clinton, who made the comments Wednesday in an emailed statement, added that police officers across the country are doing their duty honourably “without resorting to unnecessary force”. Organizers say it was a flawed investigation and authorities tried to keep the videotape from being released. McCarthy said his department was preparing for the worst but not expecting it: “We are not predicting doom and gloom, we are predicting protests”. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said that the city’s residents will “have to make an important judgment about our city and ourselves and go forward”.
Protesters will assemble Friday morning at Chicago’s historic Water Tower on Michigan Avenue, according to the website of the activist group Stop Mass Incarceration, which condemns racial profiling by police. A new round of protests on Wednesday at the Chicago’s criminal courthouse and City Hall were sparsely attended, though members of the City Council’s black caucus again demanded the resignation of Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy. “I think they’re doing okay, just they’re not causing any violence or nothing”, trapped motorist Alfredo Yepz said.
“And from everything we’ve learned, compulsively at every level, from the cops on the scene to the highest levels of government, they responded by circling the wagons and by fabricating a narrative that they knew was completely false”, Kalven said.
Five people were arrested during the demonstrations on charges including hitting a police officer, weapons possession and resisting arrest.
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Most protesters in Chicago seemed to honor pleas for restraint in the hours after the release of a dash-cam video showing the shooting death of a black teen by a white police officer.
